


Euhemerism

by voodoochild



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alien Mythology/Religion, Community: comment_fic, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 23:02:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All myths are true. The Doctor should be able to tell you that, when he's not living them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Euhemerism

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt _"the first time the Doctor heard the myth of the Pandorica"_ , for **comment_fic**. The word "euhemerism" refers to the theory that all myths are distorted accounts of historical events.

Gallifrey would have you believe they have no gods. The Doctor could tell you that's a lie.

There are the Sister-Goddesses - Death, Pain, and Time - shapers of the universe, each creating a higher race to call their own. Death created the vampires, to bring about Her order. Pain created the humans, to suffer and yet aspire to greatness. And Time created Her Time Lords, beings to maintain and monitor the timelines. There are many stories that surround the Sisters, even legends that never mention them by name. If you pay attention, you will find that in most of the legends of Gallifrey, there is always the motif of "three".

Rassilon, Omega, and the Other. The three-times-four limit upon regenerations. The three faces of the Toclafane. The three great Time Wars.

There is only one legend that ever speaks of "four" - which Gallifrey, like China on Earth, believes is evocative of bad luck. That legend is the Pandorica.

Back in the Academy, if you take intergalactic mythology (which he did for kicks, and Koschei did because Zygonian self-defense was full , and Ushas found herself being dragged along to when she had a free class), you study the Pandorica. It sounds like the typical hyperbole that makes up most myths - "a beacon of neverending suffering", "the herald of the end of time itself", "tearing open the fabric of time, cracking the skies in two", "a prison for a goblin, the worst trickster in history", "four times the light shall be beheld" - applied bollocks, in his opinion.

He should have paid attention.

But the Doctor never sees until it's almost too late, and never understands until after the fact.

(Because the skies were supposed to be filled with diamonds, and you should never tell your true name to the Toclafane, but even diamonds turn into sand and there is no rule against revealing your true name to the one you love.)

And even a Time Lord - _especially_ a Time Lord, who were once worshiped themselves as gods - should know that when your life expectancy is infinite, you tend to find yourself written into the legends. Koschei the Deathless could tell you that. Ushas of the Dawn might even agree. There is no "Theta Sigma, the traveler" or "Theta Sigma, the rebel", but words evolve. "Trickster" isn't very far off from Theta.

Then again, he never was.


End file.
